Slow tractor driver is f ined for causing a 50-car tailback

The conviction every motorist will cheer...

IT is the bane of many a motorist on a winding country road.

Stuck behind a fully-laden tractor as it trundles slowly along, you find yourself in an ever-growing queue of cars, unable to pass.

But police sided with one group of exasperated motorists – and took a farmhand to court for driving his tractor without consideration for other road users.

More than 50 increasingly impatient drivers were trapped behind Jake Fear as he drove at 25mph along the A39 near Glastonbury, Somerset, early one morning pulling a trailer piled high with beets.

A traffic officer spotted the tailback, which stretched for more than half a mile, and ordered Fear to pull over.

The 20-year-old was charged under the same legislation that targets drivers who hog the middle lane on motorways or splash pedestrians with puddles. It is thought to be the first time Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act, which allows on-the-spot fines of up to £100, has been used against a tractor driver.

The officer also spotted that Fear’s vehicle had a badly worn tyre that could have caused an accident.

Fear appeared before magistrates at Yeovil charged with driving without reasonable consideration. He admitted the offence but said he was driving at the legal speed limit for tractors and claimed he had pulled over twice during his journey last November to let cars overtake.

Fear also admitted using the vehicle when its condition – one tyre had almost no tread – meant there was a danger of causing injury.

He was fined £190 for each offence and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £20 victim surcharge, with three penalty points added to his licence. The court heard that he told the traffic officer he had noticed the lorry behind him but did not see the queue of cars, adding that there had been nowhere to pull over.

Last night Fear, of Highbridge, Somerset, criticised the fine as ‘silly and unfair’.

He claimed he had no idea he had caused such a long tailback on a busy road. ‘I didn’t know I was doing something wrong until they pulled me over,’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard of anyone who has been pulled over and fined for it.

‘I think it is all a bit silly. I was just doing my job.

‘I work for a contractor driving tractors and I was on my way to a farm with a load of beet and I got pulled over.

‘They told me off for the amount of traffic that was behind me. I was just doing what I normally do. I was driving normally. They were adamant that there was a fair amount of traffic behind me but I’m pretty sure there wasn’t that much.’

He said he knew tractor drivers were supposed to pull over into every third lay-by to let traffic pass but there had been ‘no point’ as it was early in the morning and there was a constant stream of traffic.

He also said a lorry behind him was obscuring his view of the tailback, adding: ‘I could see a couple of cars but I couldn’t see the volume of traffic behind me.

‘I’m not going to argue with it because there isn’t a lot I can do about it. If I lose my licence then that is my job out of the window. My family disagree with the fine because they think it is unfair.’

His solicitor told the court the tractor had been borrowed as Fear’s boss did not have one spare. Fear had checked the lights but did not notice the bald tyre in the dark.

‘I was just doing my job’